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High Speed Rail station controversy

Sheffield MP slams proposals for HS2 station at Meadowhall

Sheffield Central MP Paul Blomfield has criticised proposals for Sheffield's High Speed 2 railway station to be located at Meadowhall.

High Speed Rail will be the biggest investment in railway infrastructure in our city since the railway first came to Sheffield in the Victorian era. It will affect our city for the next century and so we have got to get it right. The location of the station is crucial and I think the Rail Minister is getting it badly wrong by proposing that our city’s station will be at Meadowhall.

Unless the high speed station is at the centre of Sheffield we will not see significant journey time improvements. High Speed rail journeys from Sheffield to London will take 1 hour 15 minutes, but getting to Meadowhall from the city will add up to 30 minutes. With the scheduled electrification of Midland Mainline already set to drop our journey time to London down to 1 hr 40 minutes, it’s clear that Meadowhall just will not give us the crucial journey time improvements that we need.

A Meadowhall station would undermine our city centre and would be the wrong economic decision for Sheffield because the business benefits and investment will come from the station being at the heart of the city, and linking us to other cities centre-to-centre. Birmingham’s proposed new High Speed station will be at the centre of their city as will London’s, and I fully expect Leeds and Manchester will have central locations too. Why does the Government think we should be any different?"